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Community Partnership Awardees 2004 - 2023

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These awards recognize and highlight collaboration between Stanford and community organizations. 

2024 Awardees

The 2024 awards honored those fighting against summer learning loss for K-8 students in Sunnyvale, co-creating learning courses in San Francisco jails, and making nutritious food access part of health care delivery.

Graduates students participate in classroom training session, January 2024, in order to teach jail courses

San Francisco Sheriff’s Office - Stanford Jail & Prison Education Project: Through the Stanford Jail & Prison Education Project, more than 40 graduate students a quarter, representing 30-plus academic disciplines, have volunteered to design courses and teach hundreds of incarcerated individuals within Bay Area jails and prisons since 2011. After prison realignment shifted many to county jails, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office became the central partner in 2017. Courses designed around a co-learning model range from creativity-based classes to seminar series, each informed by the inventiveness of incarcerated students, jail staff, and the volunteers.

A large group of people stand outside the Ravenswood Family Health Center after a congressional "listening session."

Second Harvest of Silicon Valley - Stanford Medicine, a Community-Campus Partnership: In 2012, Stanford Medicine’s Office of Child Health Equity developed a partnership with Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, an organization committed to ending hunger in our community. It started as a summer meal program in East Palo Alto. Today, the collaboration has grown in ways that involve students, staff and faculty in promoting summer meals, connecting community members with food distribution, and creating a referral program for patients in East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Redwood City to obtain nutritious food. A cross-collaborative food coalition is reducing silos across Stanford Medicine and facilitating closer relationships between Second Harvest, the hospitals, and researchers. 

Sunnyvale School District - Stanford Teacher Education Program Summer Explorations Program: Research indicates that students who lack academic experiences during the summer sustain learning loss. Since 2010, the Sunnyvale School District has partnered with the Stanford Teacher Education Program (STEP) to offer a summer program for 600 to 800 students annually. The reciprocal partnership affords an academically enriching summer for K-8 students that instills confidence and a learning mindset, and the opportunity for Stanford graduate students to work with an expert teacher-mentor who equips them to hit the ground running in subsequent teaching placements. The partnership has involved more than 9,000 K-8 students, over 1,000 STEP students, and 400 classroom teachers and summer school leaders.

2023 Awardees

The 2023 Community Partnership Awards recognized the role that collaborations between community organizations and Stanford in addressing local climate adaptation, intimate partner violence and youth mental health. 

Three women representing Stanford and community organizations discuss ideas around a table outside at Stanford's Haas Center

Climate Resilient Communities: Our Communities, Our Bay and Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area: Climate change is affecting Bay Area communities via wildfires and smoke and increasingly intense heat waves, flooding, and sea level rise. To focus on the effects and possible solutions in “frontline” communities such as East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks, and the Belle Haven neighborhood of Menlo Park, Climate Resilient Communities (CRC) works with two Stanford entities – Our Communities Our Bay (OCOB) and Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area (PCJ in the Bay), a Haas Center initiative. These collaborations leverage community-engaged research to specifically understand the challenges and needs of stressed communities, and deepen Stanford’s connections with local groups in common cause. OCOB has teamed up with community members on the front lines of climate change to conduct local outreach for studies ranging from measuring air quality in homes to identifying potential health impacts of climate hazards seen in sleep patterns. At the same time residents are provided with the tools they need to protect their health. PCJ in the Bay involves students and faculty in sustained, in-depth collaborations to help build climate resilience and energy justice at the community level. Some students have become a key part of CRC's organizational capacity after graduation.

A graphic image depicting six scenes of abusive behavior and concern

NextDoor Solutions and Stanford: Community-First Partnership: Domestic violence is a major public health problem, affecting more than one in three women in the United States during their lives. For the past decade, Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence has partnered with Stanford’s School of Medicine in many ways, raising awareness, establishing a network among organization members and building community ties that continue to see benefits. Putting community first is a key value and guiding principle that sustains the partnership and leverages community members’ experiences to inform and lead the direction of work. That foundation has led to collaborations involving community-engaged teaching, learning and research in both academic and community settings. The partnership’s response to the isolating effects COVID-19 in 2020 sparked new strategies, such as the “Reaching Intimate Partner Violence Survivors in COVID-19” project led by El Comité de Mujeres Fuertes, a core group with lived experience who trained other community health workers. The group helped guide the work of Stanford’s Department of Emergency Medicine and Digital Medic to create culturally accessible web videos to broaden its reach.

A close-up of three hands holding a clear pot of soil

Stanford Redwood City Sequoia School Mental Health Collaborative: Youth mental health is a top priority in the communities adjacent to Stanford’s campus as well as throughout the Bay Area and the nation. The Stanford Redwood City Sequoia School Mental Health Collaborative, a partnership including Redwood City School District, Sequoia Union High School District, Stanford’s Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing, and Stanford’s John W. Gardner Center for Youth and their Communities, formed in early 2020 to help understand and address the critical mental health needs of local students and their families. The partnership endeavors to improve school district capacity to support student and staff wellbeing, which in turn supports teaching and learning. Stanford faculty, staff, students, and fellows are afforded the unique opportunity to work at the intersection of research and practice in ways that respond to community needs, advance the field of knowledge and teaching for the next generation of scholars, and demonstrate the value of authentic university-community partnership.

2022 Awardees

The 2022 Community Partnership Awards recognized of the role that community-Stanford collaborations played in addressing the severe impacts of the the COVID-19 pandemic. The awards highlighted the extraordinary efforts to improve youth mental health, community health education and outreach to senior populations. The awards event emerged after a three-year hiatus as a joyous celebration on March 4, jointly held by the Office of Community Engagement and  the Haas Center for Public Service which awards the Miriam Aaron Roland Volunteer Service Prize. The awardees included:

allcove Palo Alto ribbon-cutting ceremony

allcove Integrated Youth Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Programs partnership: The seeds of the first national model for integrated youth mental health services in the United States formally began in 2016 with the collaboration of Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Department and Stanford Psychiatry’s Center for Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing. Together, they developed and opened the first two allcove centers in San Jose and Palo Alto in June 2021. At a time when rates of youth mental health distress are at crisis levels and have worsened from the pandemic, this partnership is creating a community-rooted place where youth 12-25 years old can receive early intervention services for mental health, physical health, substance use, education and employment or peer support, all at no cost. Seeing the potential of this community collaboration, the state of California decided to fund five additional allcove sites, with the potential for more. The partnership also builds on a longstanding relationship for youth suicide prevention, where the two teams have come together to develop and disseminate school policies and teacher training in suicide prevention, as well as TEMPOS - a scale that monitors changes in local reporting in order to measure impact of suicide prevention efforts and is now being disseminated internationally.

Avenidas_Bart Bernstein_Paula Wolf

Avenidas-Stanford Elder Care Partnership: The Avenidas name is well-known in north Santa Clara County for its work with seniors. And for more than four decades, Stanford faculty, staff, and students have supported and collaborated with Avenidas programming including the Rose Kleiner Center, Avenidas Care Partners, Avenidas Chinese Community Center, Volunteer Corps, and Door-to-Door transportation. When the pandemic hit, this deep foundation allowed it to quickly pivot to meet the sudden and unprecedented needs of hundreds of older adults and their caregivers with programs for frail and disabled seniors, family caregivers, monolingual Chinese, and older adults seeking social connection. Avenidas and the Stanford WorkLife Office supported family caregivers through some of the darkest months with phone consultation and online resources, including guidance and advice for Stanford employees, retirees, and students. Campus caregiver groups provided support and built community among neighbors. The diverse and ever-adapting programs over the past two years has demonstrated how long-term relationships can improve response for the public good.

Promotoras knocking on doors_community health workers

Promotoras de Salud Community of Practice: Since May 2021, the organizations comprising the ¡Si Se Puede! Collective in Santa Clara County and the Stanford School of Medicine Office of Community Engagement have come together to increase COVID-19 outreach in the Latinx and Spanish speaking communities. Using evidence-based strategies and creating culturally appropriate educational outreach materials in Spanish, they have worked together toward the goal of increasing vaccination and testing in the hardest-hit and most impoverished ZIP codes in the county. Fifteen community health workers, called promotoras de salud, met biweekly to share information that is used by the Stanford team to develop short videos, social media content, flyers and answers to frequently asked questions in Spanish. Meetings also involve training in evidence-based techniques to enhance outreach. The promotoras have now spoken with over 10,000 community members to promote vaccination and the efforts have led to new collaborations with schools in the promotion of vaccines for children and youth. The partnership has demonstrated co-learning among all participants that can serve as a model for tackling other issues pertinent to this community, including chronic disease prevention, cancer prevention, and climate change. 

2019 Awardees

From 2004 to 2019, the awards were administered by the unit currently known as the Office of Government Affairs. Three community groups that focus on children’s health, welfare and education were selected for Stanford's 2019 Community Partnership Awards, .  

2017 Awardees

Three community groups that are tackling real world problems and advancing the public good in neighboring cities won Stanford’s 2017 Community Partnership Awards.

2016 Awardees

Three community groups that are tackling real world problems and advancing the public good in neighboring cities won Stanford’s 2016 Community Partnerships Awards. Another community organization has won the program’s inaugural Legacy Award.

2015 Awardees

Three organizations were chosen to receive Stanford’s 2015 Community Partnership Awards, which honor the valuable partnerships that exist between Stanford and its neighbors, and celebrate community efforts that successfully tackle real-world problems and advance the public good.

2014 Awardees

Three community groups that are tackling real world problems and advancing the public good in neighboring cities were named winners of Stanford's 2014 Community Partnership Awards.

2013 Awardees

The 2013 Community Partnership Awards honored three service programs. Winners were selected based on their initiative, leadership and involvement in projects that embody the spirit of genuine partnership and benefit the overall community.

  • Stanford Academic Alliance for Global Enrichment (SAAGE)
  • Stanford at the Tech
  • Stanford GOALS Partnership

2012 Awardees

Three community groups and a Stanford University student group that are tackling real world problems and advancing the public good in neighboring cities were named winners of Stanford's 2012 Community Partnership Awards.

2011 Awardees

Three service organizations that partner with Stanford to benefit the local community were named winners of the 2011 Community Partnership Awards.

2010 Awardees

Three local service organizations were given Stanford's 2010 Community Partnership Awards.

2009 Awardees

The 2009 Community Partnership Awards were presented April 28 to three programs that benefit the local community and represent successful partnerships between Stanford and its neighbors.

2008 Awardees

The 2008 Community Partnership Awards celebrated programs that benefit the local community and represent successful partnerships between Stanford and its neighbors.

2007 Awardees

Three local organizations were presented with the university's 2007 Community Partnership Awards.

2006 Awardees

The third annual Community Partnership Awards were given to three organizations.

2005 Awardees

The 2005 Community Partnership Awards recognized three programs that benefit the local community and represent successful community partnerships between Stanford and its neighbors.

2004 Awardees

In 2004, Stanford presented the first Community Partnership Awards to recognize individuals and programs that benefit the local community and represent successful community partnerships between Stanford and its neighbors.